Fear
by DarthMittens
Summary: After defeating Voldemort, Harry is taken back to Halloween night of his first year at Hogwarts. Given the chance to change how he meets Hermione, does he take the opportunity to preemptively save her life by never meeting her, or would he rather go through everything all over again? One-Shot.


**A/N: Need to get this out of the way before working on my WIP. Damn plot bunnies! :p**

**Enjoy.**

**Fear**

Harry locked eyes with his mortal enemy, Voldemort, as their wands resonated, their spells clashing in mid-air. An image of Hermione's broken, bloody body filled Harry's head and he yelled in agony.

Hermione had been the only source of happiness in his life after Ron had died. She was the only thing holding him together. He was in love with her, and he knew, despite the fact that she was dead now, that he would be in love with her to the very end.

And she had been in love with him.

He yelled louder and locked eyes with Voldemort, whose eyes were filled with emotion Harry knew the Dark Lord had never experienced before: fear. Harry poured every ounce of hate he had into his wand and his spell magnified in power by tenfold. So this was the power Dumbledore had been talking about. He had loved so strongly that nothing could match his grief now that his love was dead.

What an interesting turn of events.

Harry's spell blasted through Voldemort, leaving nothing but a pair of legs that fell, smoking, to the ground without a torso, and Harry collapsed onto his knees, panting as if he had just ran a marathon. He certainly felt as though he had.  
He smiled the bitter smile of a defeated young man and turned his wand on himself.

He dully heard Mr. Weasley's shout of, "No, Harry!"

Then he cried, "Bombarda Maxima!"

Before he felt the pain of the spell blowing his head into a bloody pulp against the wall behind him, Harry felt himself shifting painfully through some sort portal similar to the feeling he got when apparating. Just when he thought he was about to be squeezed into nothingness, a flood of stimuli flooded his senses and he clenched his teeth in pain. The pain slowly faded into nothingness, and then...

"Troll! Troll in the dungeon!" Harry heard, and he blinked and looked around. He was sitting in the Great Hall, and there were pumpkins and candles floating in the air. An eleven-year-old Ron Weasley was sitting next to him greedily eating a handful of candy. All of the teachers had stood up, but they were all there, including Dumbledore, the only member of the staff who was still seated.

Harry looked back over at Quirrell just in time for him to say, "Just thought you ought to know," then promptly faint. Harry remained stock-still as everyone went into a frenzy, and didn't even notice when Dumbledore began giving orders to everybody.

What in the name of all that was holy was going on here? Was his life flashing before his eyes before he died? If so, why was this more than just a flash? If this was happening, did that mean he would have to live Ron and Hermione's deaths over again? Would he have to watch the two worst moments of his life helplessly while his younger self made all the wrong decisions? Maybe he had lost to Voldemort and was trapped in a false reality that was meant to cause him eternal pain.

Dumbledore finished his speech and everyone began filing out of the hall, at which point time seemed to begin slowing down around Harry as something hit him.

Hermione was in the bathroom crying her eyes out, and there was a troll heading in her direction.

He quickly stood up to save her just as he had done so long ago, but something stopped him when he realized he had control over his eleven-year-old self's body.

He could change history.

He could run up to Dumbledore right now and tell him about Hermione and how she was in the girls bathroom. Dumbledore would send a teacher to fetch her and Hermione would be just fine.

And she would never meet Harry.

She would never go through all the trouble Harry had put her through. She could enjoy her seven years at Hogwarts. She could live to grow old. She could fall in love and raise a family. She could experience everything she never got to because of him.

Harry could also cut all of his ties with Ron right now. Harry could go about saving the Philosopher's Stone, killing the basilisk, rescuing Sirius, and all of the other things he had done by himself. He could plan everything out so he could accomplish it himself. Nobody else would need to be hurt because of him.

_"Before I met you, I hated my life. I hated myself. If it weren't for you, Harry...I don't know what I would have done."_

Hermione's voice rang in his head. She had spoken those words to him the night before she had died. He had changed her life for the better, she had claimed.

So what was he supposed to do?

Was he supposed to let her hate grow up hating herself and hating life because he was so selfish that he didn't want to go through the pain of her death again? Sure, if he decided to save her right now and planned it right, changing what happened later down the road, he might be able to make sure Hermione didn't die during the battle of Hogwarts, but there had been so much fighting going on that he wasn't completely sure he could keep her safe.

There was a high possibility that if he met Hermione again, she would die.

Time resumed its normal flow again and everything burst into cacophony as Head Boys and girls rounded up their students and began shepherding them to the safety of their common rooms.

Harry was running out of time.

What should he do? Ensure his and Hermione's loneliness for the duration of their stints at Hogwarts for the sake of keeping her safe? Harry would surely live his whole life in loneliness without Hermione, too, which was a significant drawback, but a similar issue he faced if he decided to save her right now?

Everyone was out of the Great Hall now, and Harry blinked in confusion. What was he supposed to do now?

He felt a tap on his shoulder and whirled around to see Dumbledore standing behind him with a concerned look on his face.

"You have to go, Harry," he said. "People are waiting for you."

What was he talking about? Did he somehow know about what was going on, or was he talking about getting to Hermione to save her?

"Sir," Harry said, wincing at how high his voice sounded to his ears. "I don't know what to do," he confessed.

Dumbledore merely smiled that grandfatherly smile at him. "Harry, the only men to have ever altered the course of history were men of action. How can you expect to change anything if you stand by idly on the sidelines?" With a twinkle in his eyes, he said, "That is, of course, unless you have a request of me."

And in that moment, Harry knew the answer. How could he have been so stupid?

He scrambled out of his seat and sprinted out of the great hall, Dumbledore's eyes on his back the whole way.

He sprinted to the girls' bathrooms and blasted the doors open. The mountain troll was there, as expected, and so was Hermione, who was looking at him with wide eyes.

She knew.

Harry nodded at Hermione and she nodded back, and together the two of them managed to incapacitate the troll with relative ease.

Then, from across the bathroom, the two of them locked eyes again. With only a fraction of a moment's hesitation, Harry ran up to her and tackled her with a hug that brought both of them to their knees, with Harry's face against Hermione's shoulder and Hermione's hands gently holding her close to him.

"Hermione..." he choked out, and noticed that he was so close to crying that his throat was burning uncontrollably.

Hermione sighed happily. "I thought you were going to send a teacher to come get me." She chuckled. "It took you a little longer this time."

Harry pulled back to hold her at arm's length, taking in all of her, then looked her seriously in the eyes and said, "I would rather go through everything we went through again than live my life without you."

Hermione's eyes filled with tears, and for a horrible moment Harry thought he had said something wrong. Then she jumped at him and toppled him over onto the wet floor with a hug of her own. "I would too, Harry," she cried against his neck. "I would too. I'll make sure to make it to the other side still alive this time, too."

They both knew it was an empty promise, but one that would neither of them could argue. They would just have to live their lives day by day, soaking up each tiny speck of happiness that they could.

After all, death was waiting right around the corner on any given day.

They couldn't afford to waste any of their precious time by being unhappy.

Harry blinked, felt that horrible sucking sensation again, and was torn from Hermione's arms.

He drew in a rasping breath and saw Voldemort's smoking legs on the ground again, and felt his wand pressed against the underside of his mouth.

"No, Harry!" Mr. Weasley shouted.

Harry dropped his wand with a gasp and fell over onto his side, his whole body hurting. He didn't know what to think. Was what he had just seen a hallucination? Was Hermione okay? Was he going to have to spend the rest of his life without her? He didn't know if he could kill himself now that the heat of the moment had died down if he found out after all of this that Hermione was dead after all.

And just like that, Harry blacked out.

What must have been several hours later, according to Harry's internal clock, he opened his eyes groggily and noticed that he was in the hospital wing. It was just like old times.

He blindly groped for his glasses and froze when a hand gently grabbed his to steady it. He recognized that hand. He had fallen asleep while holding that hand countless numbers of times over the past six months.

"Hermione," he said, and quickly put his glasses on after she used her other hand to put them in his hand.

"I'm right here," she said reassuringly. "I'm here, Harry."

He looked at her in awe and she smiled at him, making sure to use that smile that was reserved only for him. "What the bloody hell happened?" he asked, groaning and falling back against his pillow. His body hurt too much to prop himself up.

He kept his eyes on her though, making sure to drink in the fact that she was alive and well and was still tenderly holding his hand.

"It was a test," she said.

Harry's eyebrows furrowed. "A test?" Harry said.

Hermione smiled lovingly at him. "Apparently my life was in your hands. You saved me again, Harry. You deciding that the pain you might have to go through again was worth it made it so whatever grand power felt enough sympathy for you to give you a chance to save me."

Harry smiled and scooted over to the side of the bed, and Hermione took the invitation and climbed in with him, resting her head on his shoulder. "I love you so much, Harry," she said.

Harry felt his throat burning again. He never knew he could be this happy. "I love you too, Hermione."

They sat in the hospital bed for a long while, relishing in the fact that they were alive and in love, and had their whole lives to look forward to.

**A/N: Inspired, of course, by the events that occurred in CLANNAD. If you haven't seen it...well, quite frankly, you're missing out.**

**Thanks for reading!**


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